14. Reflecting Matobo

Please visit the The Arts in Focus to obtain information about our 2014 Matopos Calendar - 

an initiative supporting rhino conservation in Zimbabwe.

I had a dog during a period of my life when I really needed a good friend. Although he died young, he helped me through the turbulent teenage phase, and he helped me well. Jack had an incredible and uncanny way to sense my mood. On those vibrant exuberant spring days so characteristic of the lowveld where I grew up, he would adjust his behavior either to complement or to accommodate mine. When I was happy Jack would bounce alongside me, panting in anticipation. When I was sad or lonely he would simply walk next to me, watching me, to be there for me, strong and powerful, the rock against which I could lean. When I sat at a waterhole watching a herd of impala drink, he would push his body right up against mine and lean his head on my shoulder with a wet nose in my neck, breathing gently onto my skin. That would have its magic effect on me and soon my mood would improve, and invariably Jack would run ahead in the footpath, towards home, happy with his personal achievement, wagging his tail because his master was in a better mood.

 Many years have past since I spent a real thought on Jack, that is until I got to know Matobo better. As with my dog, Matobo senses my moods and, more importantly, my needs. My mood is reflected in the atmosphere as I move through this incredible landscape. How is it possible that this place can easily mold itself around the emotional needs of a man, in fact of all the people there?

I go to Matobo as an escape from the sadness in me… and Matobo accepts me and reacts in a gentle way, offering me comfort and guiding me through the rough parts in my heart. He accepts me as I am without rejecting my negative emotions. Instead, he works with them and gently, gently makes me understand, accept and handle those emotions. Subtly, he shows me the blue sky and the new fresh leaves, a gust of wind may bring new smells and who can remain sad when you smell the first rain on dry soil?

I once went to Matobo to seek peace, cause I was angry at life, angry at what happened to my mother, angry that life is unfair and walked long and hard through the rocky landscape, and this time Matobo reflected my anger. Again my feelings were not rejected, simply accepted and dealt with. The thorns of the acacias ripped through my skin, bit into, and tore bits of leather from my shoes. The granite rocks, hot in the midday sun, reflected my own anger in heat, and where I had to lean against the rocks to regain my breath it burnt like the fury in me. The place was angry and he was not afraid to show me his anger. I sensed his immense anger and it shocked me into silence. I stopped to think. Was Matobo angry for my own reasons? Or was he angry because of his own reasons? Perhaps the grass that was burnt, the rhino that were poached or the gold panning in the rural areas, scarring its surface? No matter the reasons for his fury, I could feel it in the trees and rocks and boulders. I could hear it in his angry roars. The incessant cicadas were screaming it out in frequencies and decibels that befit the anger of the behemoth.

I thought about my own anger. I tried to justify it, fight it out, even screamed it out but my own human voice faded in the rocks and did not carry like the roar of a lion or the call of the fish eagle. It faded into insignificance and fell limp at my feet. I was defeated. Defeated by anger.

Matobo understood and allowed me space. Allow does not mean pamper. It does not mean he agreed and supported my anger. He only reflected it, showing me what it is, showing me the futility - the lion does not roar its anger, nor does the fish eagle call his anger over the echoing valleys. They communicate in peace and harmony, and therefore the valleys are prepared to perpetuate those good sounds, amplify them and echo them. But my anger was simply absorbed and muffled in the thick vegetation. There is no harmony in the voice of human anger!

Just as my dog many years ago coached me out of my anger, Matobo did it too. Once you vented your anger, fought the fury of it and the blood on your arms and legs dry up and can be scratched off, exposing the torn skin, then all you have from your blind fury is the burning sensation of thorns and nettles and abrasions from sharp unforgiving granite. The rage of fury at least brings some understanding, even if it is only the understanding of defeat.

Humbled by this experience I lay on my stomach amongst the ever-present lichens and let their brilliant colors permeate my heart and mind. Matobo, is like a great big mirror, a channel of vision straight into your heart and mind. In its wisdom it allows you to see yourself the way you are. It reflects the real you, and many times that is not what you want to see. For it is this image we have within us that we want to hide from the rest of the world.

Matobo however has a way to help you deal with it. At first it will show you who you are, what you look like, then it will allow you to go through your motions and tantrums… but slowly it will reel you in. You will walk out on top of a large rock/dwala, into the breeze. The anger will suddenly drain out of you, induced by the cool breeze in your face. You will breathe in deeply, perhaps for the first time today. Your mood will changes as you allow this place to guide you and mold you back into the shape you ought to be. Just allow it. Don’t fight it for longer than you need to. Bend your ways like the water bends the reflections of the reeds in the early morning. It will slowly bring you around the way the wind flows through the valleys, then it will show you the other side, the better side. The beauty within.

3. Photographing Place and Character

Matopos National Park.
Hasselblad negative scanned.

Bill and I were talking today (I went to pay him for the Voigtlander!), about photographing a place like Matopos. The question in my mind is: why live in the immediate vicinity of an incredibly photogenic place like Matopos for nine years without making a serious effort to photograph it? Surely, it cries out to be photographed? There is so much: Grandiose granite would be a definite understatement! If it was manmade, many would have said that perhaps the architects went slightly beyond the original brief, if not completely overboard! 

Although the objective of our ambling conversation was not aimed at answering my nagging question, we did touch on it and probably came very close to the real answer.  The main reason why the lag between first seeing and seriously considering Matopos as the subject of a photographic project, constituted 9 years, is most probably a function of understanding, and I mean a fundamental understanding… Actually it is more than understanding - you need to feel the place, its character and moods. Once seeing how the seasons change and attempt to control and mould the place and in turn seeing how she fights back, resists and maintain her own… I guess you need to see it emerge from, heal itself, after a devastating fire, or being cut down again during the dry season after a spectacular rainy season… You need to freeze there, feel how the granite can sap the last heat out of your body, or you need to sweat in the heat, cycling a mountain bike through it - hating yourself for even attempting it, and enjoying the triumph of one of these views once you reach a summit. 

Hasselblad - Printed on Ilford FB paper & scanned. 

You need to experience it first hand on numerous occasions, with different friends for different reasons, alone or simply with your immediate family, to celebrate birthdays or sitting on a massive rock contemplating the death of your sister, a lifelong friend, or, as in my case sitting in the same spot coming to terms with the fact that I have escaped certain death. Seeking out a path through the labyrinth of rocks and boulders and trees in a two dimensional world, teaches you a lot about Matopos and about yourself. The first time I went back there I needed a helping hand - a guide. But things improved thereafter and now I am confident and can go there alone. I think its a process of seeing and experiencing these transitions, not only within the physical environment going through seasons and droughts and fires, but also the transitions in you as a human being going through this place. Its molds you, cradles you, supports you and if you open yourself to it, you learn from it. It has many lessons.

Hasselblad - Printed on Ilford FB paper & scanned.

As the granite changes at the pace of eons, slowly tinkered by frost, heat and cold and by the chemistry of the earth, similarly we have our own core, the rigid center of our being, which budges for nothing less than death itself. The next layer is still long lived, trees counting life cycles in hundreds of years growing alongside their granitic brothers. Further layers follow in the form of young trees, shrubs, grasses and brittle herbs in the early rainy season. The most vulnerable is the thin outer layer of lichens and mosses - fragile as our own skin or sensitive as our hearts. Often in the misty rains you will see the tears roll down these boulders and accumulate in tiny streams - feeding the earth, nurturing and promising this complex giant a new phase of growth and prosperity, starting another cycle. New life.

Defunct Gatepost. Matopos.
Bill's Voigtlander.  Printed on very old
Agfa paper & scanned.

In my human arrogance, nine years seems to be a reasonable apprenticeship… Seeing nine cycles before my eyes, in the morning on my daily commute, at dusk at down, in pitch black darkness during a fishing trip - watching goats and cattle auctioned with a the granitic backdrop of Matopos, seeing children grow up as they walk to school, seeing young women with proud shoulders carrying water in the mornings turning into plump mothers with blankets supporting new babies on their backs and fresh wheelbarrows turning into rusty wobbly wheeled devices of local frustration… I am almost convinced that the first chocolate donkey I saw as a young jolly soul, is now a harness scarred cynical old girl with a matted coat, but as stubbornly willing as the first day she was used in front of that cart.   

Having seen all of this, and being molded and shaped by life through some beautiful and some not so beautiful challenges - I think this place has opened up to me, a sliver wide enough to see her heart and to graciously  allowing me to point a camera onto her noble face and character. I shall take this honor with dignity, and do my utmost to portray this place with enthusiasm and passion.

I just love this place!
Hasselblad negative scanned